The human body is pretty good at telling you when you’re in need of a break. There is absolutely a need to train hard when trying to achieve the level of fitness needed for the RM, however you also have to train smart.

The body needs adequate amounts of rest to be able to recover and improve from hard workouts. Without it, performance will drop and improvements will be small to non-existent. Overtraining is a real thing and you may wish to review your training plan to look to give your body the opportunity to be able to adapt. Muscle fibres are broken down and suffer tiny tears when training which then repair and grow back stronger, however if they never have the chance to fully repair, the grow back stronger bit takes a hit!

My advice, also as a PT, would be to either take an entire week off, or to have a very very light week of training. I have no doubt your body will thank you for it and you will likely come back feeling refreshed and performing better.

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For sure, thanks for responding. Once upon a time I also did the Level 3 PT and Level 4 "Super PT" quals but have never used them (was funded by gym owner because he got some sort of grant from the government), so have a good awareness of how the body works too, but it's been maybe 8 years now and the knowledge fade is considerable!

I opted in the end for a reduced week but one where certain sessions or days remain hard. I've stepped back my running from ~30 miles per week to just 3 runs this week. Did an 8 miler at easy pace Monday, a 5 mile easy pace today and Friday will be 6-8 easy miles too. However, I chose to keep the volume high on strength & conditioning. Yesterday did 3 separate sessions (a bodyweight circuit, a weights session, and a quick HIIT power session) staggered through the day. Tomorrow will be a weights session in the AM and a bodyweight circuit in the PM.

All in all, feeling fresh and it's a welcome change. Should be back onto high mileage, sprints sessions etc again next week.

WEDNESDAY
10 hill sprints 3km in total 21.25min small improvement.
TODAY
4km only mainly due to pains I’ll get onto under but in total 21min.
found out earlier this week about the flat feet and the big negative effect running wise one foot was more flatter then the other where all my problems injury wise where happening, so looked through and found my old custom made insoles but haven’t worn in a year or two, running on them is a pain for now getting skin burn on my feet got a bad blister today running had to walk the last km took my a good 10min to walk it ! Very sore but moisturized my feet today and will tomorrow, hoping this doesn’t go on I think if I remeber correctly the pain will go away when the feet get used to the insoles. Also bashing out the pushups 70 a day 5 day a week for now might up it soon, also doing 3 upper body sessions a week.
My ankle pain have basically vanished since the insoles although not 100 percent yet but it’s a good sign, didn’t run last Sunday so to pain I’ll be trying Sunday hopefully if my feet feel ok! Still sore now as of tonight though.

‘Gone from the usual reps at 400m to doing 800m intervals instead so hopefully see some improvement on the running front.
I’ve decided to lower the sets on press/sit-ups from 3x to 2x but increased the reps which is down to me thinking quality reps is better than slugging burning myself out ones so went from 3x 20 to 2x 25 but will improve this week by week depending on how that week goes.
I’m not to concerned on sit-ups so for the time will just keep them the same as the pressups.

Decided to drop the negatives and add the resistance band pull-ups instead (black band) so I can work on the correct form and get my body used to it but have increased the dead hang times so hopefully they will help.

‘Have kept the bleep test at 3x level 6 for this week as I felt the 3rd set I last did I had to dig deep so will do one more week at that level.

I’m surprising myself a lot with my current running.
I thought I’d overdone it by increasing it to much from 10x400m to 6x800m in just a week.
Always seem to struggle when I start running for couple minutes but then I’m fine once I get going!! my calves started going tight around the last 600m but I had a look at the splits and overall I was doing the 1.5 mile in 12.53 and 12.58 I know this is terrible times and having 2 min rest in between the 800m but on was very happy with the 3 mile overall!
I didn’t push out the effort just wanted to get the distance in before I work on pace but I’m starting to feel like I’m fitter than I give myself credit for!

Forearms are super weak now after doing those dead hangs for 30sec! It’s the combination of doing several that’s ruined me.
Ended up making a 5 egg ham ,cheese mushroom omelette with a chocolate milkshake probably not the best stuff to have after being in the sun most the day sick as a dog now.